Abstract
Abstract. This article addresses unaccompanied minor asylum seekers' (UAMs) educational experiences in Switzerland. Drawing on ethnographic research we explore what it means for UAMs to get an education and how having access or not having access to particular forms and spaces of education plays a part in the process of their subject formations. We get insights into such processes in diverse spaces of education and in phases of transition between them. We point out how educational arrangements can produce feelings of belonging and non-belonging and highlight that these feelings are entangled with life experiences and the responsibilities of UAMs in their daily lives in Switzerland. We argue that although at first glance the category unaccompanied minor asylum seeker seems to dominate and determine the formation of a possible educational subject and feelings of belonging for UAMs, the subject formation and feelings of belonging in the highly regulated field of UAMs' education are far more complex and fluid. To capture this complexity, we draw on geographies of education and understand spaces of education as connected to other spaces as UAMs' learning and educational processes are entangled with the demands of their everyday lives.
Highlights
Barbara: If you could change something about your life in Switzerland, at Waldblick, what would you change?Thomas1 (16, from Afghanistan): I’d go to the regular school [instead of the internal school], in order to have a better future.This short sequence stems from an interview with Thomas, a 16-year old unaccompanied minor asylum seeker (UAM)2 living at Waldblick, a center for unaccompanied minor asylum seekers in Switzerland
Based on ethnographic research in a center in Switzerland where exclusively UAMs aged 12 and older live, we focus on UAMs’ educational expectations and experiences in order to show how processes through which one becomes a subject in the context of refugee education are at work and how such processes can be interwoven with feelings of belonging
In bringing a relational thinking of spaces of education together with Judith Butler’s work on subjection, we have sought to show how processes of becoming subordinated by power as well as processes of becoming a subject are at work in the context of refugee education, how such processes can be interwoven with feelings of belonging, and how significant space can be in these processes
Summary
Barbara: If you could change something about your life in Switzerland, at Waldblick, what would you change?. Landolt: Unaccompanied minor asylum seekers new people and build friendships (Bird, 2003; Brownlees and Finch, 2010; Dryden-Peterson, 2011; Hek, 2005a, b; Kirk and Cassity, 2007; Machel, 1996; Matthews, 2008; Mosselson, 2006; Pascual, 2003; Sinclair, 2001; Sirriyeh, 2010; Walker, 2011) Despite this recognized importance of education and the children’s right to education (guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF, 1989, and other legal frameworks), access to education is not given in every case as UAMs are subject to children’s rights and to their host country’s asylum legislation. We show how UAMs’ positionalities change in relation to particular educational spaces and discuss particular challenges for UAMs emerging out of these arrangements
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